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MK25toLife

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 7, 2007
257
1
The screen saver on the iPod Classic with the time and battery status is the dumbest thing ever, can I turn it off? A lot of times I'll have my iPod on my desk and there will be enough light that I would be able to see the song info but I can't b/c of the screen saver, so I have to move the scroll wheel a little just to get the info I need. SMH
 
It is patently dumb.

No battery life is saved by displaying a clock rather than my song information. It is obnoxious and needs a setting to turn it off.

Only turning the backlight off is needed for battery saving (and yet that can be set to always-on)


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If I may digress, the iPod _software_ is some of the prettiest, yet badly thought-out, interface software I've seen. Just two items that annoy me are that the EQ clips, which no other MP3 player, as far as I know -ever- has had issues with. And, if you are playing a song and back out to the root menu to change a setting, there's no quick way to get back to your normal song-playing screen such that hitting menu will take you back one level rather than all the way back to the root again.

It's always irksome when the hardware is good, and yet the software has major flaws. And not flaws that are there because it was rushed or that the programmers weren't good enough to avoid.
 
A screensaver that can't be turned off? This must be Apple thinking different™ again. Good grief.
 
I find it ironic that the iPod Classic is called Classic when the UI is kinda janky compared to that of an original iPod.

I have a couple of qualms about the somewhat strange behavior behind the iPod Touch/iPhone UI, but they're not as bad.. For example, there's no way to turn off the cover flow mode, so whenever I sit it sideways (and I always do in the car), the play controls are pretty much gone. Second, if you DO use cover flow mode, you find that it goes into album-mode instead of playing your whole library, which is annoying as *@#%.

The last thing is that if you're not in the "all songs" list, there's no way to play your entire library, I guess that's to be expected since the same is sorta true with iTunes, but not entirely - if you sort by artist in iTunes you can still play your entire library. If, OTOH you look up an artist on your iPod, you're going to hear the 1 or 2 songs you have from them over and over and over...

XD

The "Now playing" button gets on my nerves for a similar reason (not entirely sure why), buuut the other killer is, that if the screen goes to sleep you have to hit the menu button TWICE to get controls like fast forward/pause.

Because of that, it's impossible to use an iPod Touch in a car that isn't equipped with a unit to control the iPod through the stereo, in fact you can't even buy a remote because apple doesn't make (and nobody really makes) iPod remotes anymore.

Of course, the touch controls themselves seem a little odd to be operating while driving, but it's not really a big deal - the randomness between having to hit menu twice to bring them up though IS a problem. I know I can hit skip/pause without looking at my iPod Touch, but the fact that it's not going to be there when I tap it, pisses me off.
 
Screensaver

I agree that it's annoying. In settings, turn the backlight to "always on" and then turn down the brightness to about 5%, which is still legible in most conditions.
 
If I may digress, the iPod _software_ is some of the prettiest, yet badly thought-out, interface software I've seen. Just two items that annoy me are that the EQ clips, which no other MP3 player, as far as I know -ever- has had issues with. And, if you are playing a song and back out to the root menu to change a setting, there's no quick way to get back to your normal song-playing screen such that hitting menu will take you back one level rather than all the way back to the root again.

It's always irksome when the hardware is good, and yet the software has major flaws. And not flaws that are there because it was rushed or that the programmers weren't good enough to avoid.

I know this is an old post, I came looking for an answer on the dumb screensaver issue.

Anyway, IMHO the behaviour where menu button takes you back to where you were is perfect because now you have the option, if you click the centre button for a couple of seconds, to either browse the artist or the album. So you can now, go back where you came from , go back to the main menu (hold the menu button for a few seconds) or access the additional options by pressing the centre button for a few seconds.

By the way... has anybody found a solution for the screensaver (other than reducing the level of the backlight!)
 
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